my sister and I dreamed the same shaman. twice.

Okay I wasn't going to post this but I need to get it out.

So my older sister isn't like, a ghost-seeing person or anything. She just... has these dreams. Weird ones. Experiences that don't make sense. And because we live together, I end up getting dragged into her whole thing whether I want to or not.

I'm a psychology major. I believe in cognitive explanations for stuff like déjà vu, I'm not someone who jumps to "it was a SPIRIT" immediately. But something happened about five years ago that I genuinely cannot explain away.

It was summer. I'd come down to Busan to visit my parents from my lab, and my grandma was staying over, which meant I had to sleep in my sister's room for one night. Her bed is king-sized so we just slept on opposite ends. I was SO exhausted that I passed out before she even got settled.

And then I was in a dream.

I was climbing a forested mountain. Not pitch dark, more like... pre-dawn? That weird gray-blue light where you can kind of see but not really. There were stone steps, like some kind of altar staircase, and I was walking up them. Slow. Calm.

From above, I could hear bells. Jingle jingle jingle. When I looked up, there was thick fog.

And honestly? I wasn't scared. I just kept climbing. Like a lone leopard ascending Kilimanjaro (look I was half asleep, my brain does things). No fear, no thoughts, just. Going up.

The bells got louder the higher I went, and the fog started to thin. Then I saw it.

A skirt, spinning.

You know the red skirt that shamans (mudang¹) wear during rituals? With those colorful cloth strips tied at the waist? That. Spinning in circles, white-socked feet tapping the ground, round and round. She was dancing in place, shaking bells somewhere above the fog line.

I climbed a little more. Almost at the upper body now.

And then. THEN.

Something just hit me. Like a switch flipped. Every cell in my body went OH NO. Up until that exact second I had been completely calm, zero emotion, but suddenly I knew with absolute certainty that I needed to WAKE UP RIGHT NOW.

I fought to get out of the dream while my body kept walking upward on its own. Took a second but I pulled myself out.

And the moment I opened my eyes, first thing I did instinctively was look at the door.

My mom always gets a talisman (부적²) from a Buddhist temple every year and sticks it on my sister's room entrance because sister has SO many weird experiences. I needed to see it. Still there. okay.

Then I looked over at my sister.

She was making the most HORRIFYING face. Like someone who wanted to commit a murder. Groaning in her sleep, face completely twisted.

I grabbed her hand and pressed it, shook her a few times. She gasped awake, squinted at me, said "oh it's you" like I was an inconvenience, sighed, and immediately went back to sleep.

Okay. Not sleep paralysis then. I went back to sleep too and honestly slept great after that.

Next morning at brunch I casually asked her if she had bad dreams because she looked UNHINGED while sleeping.

She said I was the problem because I snore.

I said she snores too so who is she to talk.

Siblings. Anyway.

She didn't mention any dream so I figured okay, weird dream, moving on, just me.

Mom and sister and grandma went to a department store. I hate shopping with every fiber of my being so I stayed home alone, hung out with the cat, eventually drifted off for a nap in my sister's room again.

and the dream. picked up. EXACTLY where I left off.

The spinning skirt. The colorful cloth strips. The bells, louder now, and underneath them something like a drum I hadn't noticed before. My body walking up the steps again like it had somewhere to be.

I panicked and tried to wake up. Couldn't. Whatever worked the first time wasn't working.

So I kept climbing.

The upper body came into view slowly.

Arms stretched high in the air, holding bells. Wide-brimmed shaman hat on the head.

And.

The upper body was completely still.

The lower body was spinning.

Like. Not in sync. Like the two halves were disconnected. The feet going round and round and round without stopping, and the torso just... frozen. Watching me.

I looked up at the face anyway. dream-me had no survival instincts apparently.

Heavy white powder makeup. Red lips, painted long and deliberate like someone took a brush and just. Drew them on.

I was looking up from below so I couldn't see above the nose. But those lips. I could see those perfectly. Stretched into the widest grin. Like they were about to split.

And I felt it again.

that's not a woman.

I don't know how to explain it. It was wearing women's ceremonial clothes, but something about it just. no. that's a man. or something in a man's body. the feeling was immediate and certain.

But here's the weird part. Even then I also felt like... it wasn't going to hurt me? Like a tiger in a zoo. It COULD. It's still a tiger. But there's glass between you. Fear and instinctive disgust and also somehow. relief.

I stared up at it for a while from the base of its feet and then woke up.

Outside the sun was setting golden. Completely normal evening. The cat was napping next to me without a care in the world (thanks for the protection bestie, really pulling your weight).

I called my mom and grandma just in case. Both fine, having a great time at the mall. okay. weird dream. noted. moving on.

That night I went back to my own room and slept completely dreamlessly.

But the next morning my sister looked like she'd been personally wronged by the universe.

I asked if she was constipated. (the sisterly thing to do.)

She went "ugh I keep having the SAME dream, it's that bitch again."

So I asked what dream.

She said a shaman in red clothes keeps showing up in her dreams every so often. Showing up, making noise with bells, luring her to weird places like mountains or open fields. Always the same one. White makeup like a death god, wide-brimmed hat so she can never quite see its face. Never directly threatens her. Just. Keeps coming back.

I felt the goosebumps crawl up my entire body.

So.

It showed up in my dream.

My sister's recurring visitor.

And the only reason I was sleeping in her room was because grandma was over.

did it think I was her